U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,096, entitled "Crushing Apparatus" issued Feb. 26, 1963 to David P. McConnell, father of the inventor herein. The crusher described and claimed in the above noted patent is believed to be particularly representative of the prior art with respect to the present invention and is accordingly discussed in greater detail below. At the same time, the jaw crusher of the present invention includes certain features in common with that of the above noted patent. Accordingly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,096 is incorporated herein as though set forth in its entirety in order to provide a more complete understanding of the present invention, particularly as to those features which are also common to the above patent.
Referring now to the incorporated reference, it disclosed a jaw crusher of the type generally referred to above wherein an eccentric mass was supported for rotation behind each of the opposed jaws. Substantial forces acting upon the jaws were absorbed by resilient means including wheels with pneumatic tires arranged in shoes or cylindrical tracks. In addition to absorbing tremendous shock loading on the jaws, the resilient tires also permitted the jaws to move away from each other as necessary when uncrushable material formed from hardened steel and the like entered between the jaws.
Accordingly, the jaw crusher of the reference was particularly effective in crushing material such as rock while preventing the jaws or other portions of the crusher from being damaged by uncrushable material passing between the jaws.
Other jaw crushers including vibratory jaw crushers with opposed jaws operated by rotating eccentric masses have also been disclosed. However, at least for purposes of the present invention, their apparatus is believed to be generally equivalent to that of the above reference.
Although the jaw crusher of the reference and similar jaw crushers in the prior art were very effective for their purpose, it has been found desirable to achieve certain improvements particularly in the area of increased crushing capacity, the ability to pass even larger uncrushable objects and the achievement of smoother and more uniform operation of the crusher both for contributing to increased capacity and also for assuring a long operating life, particularly for parts in the crusher subject to substantial shock loading.
Accordingly, there has been found to remain a need for a jaw crusher exhibiting improvements in accordance with the preceding discussion.